I will be honest and say that I’ve sled into the depths of depression, from which I am only now emerging, and now grasping greedily at the breath of life. This slide downward started, oh, sometime in the winter, and I’m only feeling as though the fog is clearing in the past few weeks.

And it turns out I don’t write much when the life force has been sucked out of me the way it was.

But, I’m finally feeling better. I have a bit of repair work to do on some relationships that I wasn’t able to hold up my end of the bargain on these past months. But overall, it seems that little damage has been done (until some more cracks in the ceiling, walls and foundation begin to show up).

Life is feeling better again. I’m sure it’s a combination of things, no one thing alone. There has been some shift in medications, an increase in exercise (swimming, specifically). Sunshine does seem to help. (Note: Self, think about having Vitamin D levels checked). Things at work are becoming less crummy. Singing has been helping (for some reason, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” helps). The awfulness of the state of the world (I don’t even know where to start — the way the debt ceiling discourse is going?) doesn’t seem to make me want to retreat beneath the comforter anymore, it just seems sad and hopeless in a more everyday sort of way.

In case you were wondering, the title of this post comes from a “Wonder Pets” episode involving an inchworm and a recently emerged butterfly — the friends find out they can’t hang out the way they used to when the butterfly was a caterpillar, crawling through mud, chewing on leaves, etc. And I feel maybe like the butterfly, or maybe like the inchworm. Not sure. But okay.

So, there’s stuff I want to say about fatness. Really there is. Like, why is it necessary to single out fat kids and their parents? Is it because all of the children whose parents are mistreating them have been adopted and living happily ever after lives and now there’s nothing for all the social workers to do, so they need new customers? Let’s prioritize — and once we’ve got the rape, incest, physical, mental, emotional abuse stuff all sorted out, then let’s sit down and see if we might be able to do something productive to help the fat kids and their parents.

But in the meantime, if you are in the northern hemisphere, I hope you are having a lovely summer. And if you are in the southern hemisphere, I hope you are having a lovely winter. And if you are in an equatorial region, I hope you are enjoying either the rainy or dry season, as the case may be, if you have such seasons.

I’m glad you’re feeling better. Yeah, this spring was Teh Suxxor weather-wise, wasn’t it? If not for my light box, I think my head would have melted, and that’s WITH the meds. (Oh yeah, and almost everyone in the PNW, unless they work outdoors all day every day, is short on vitamin D. My doctor actually gave me a super-saturated liquid to start out with for about 8 weeks, and then I could just take the D3 from the store.

What is it about country music? I, too, am no big fan of it, but if I’m going to hoist myself up, I pretend I’m Reba and sing “Let’s Give ’em Something to Talk About.” (I also own a Dixie Chicks CD, and sometimes exercise to White Trash Wedding. I bought the CD when the real country music people were boycotting them.)